


The Finest Details

by Frangipanidownunder



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-10
Updated: 2017-09-10
Packaged: 2018-12-26 00:20:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12047388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Frangipanidownunder/pseuds/Frangipanidownunder
Summary: Fic based on a photo of Scully in a black suit, smiling. This was the prompt:  Mulder has this picture of Scully in his wallet. Bonus if he’s also the one who took it.Gethsemane angst.





	The Finest Details

It’s funny how you remember the finest details. The way you nearly dropped the camera when the lens cap fell off and you reached out a hand to grab it as it bounced off the car door. The smell of the onions frying at the food truck parked a way along the road. You told her to find some money for a chilli dog and she told you that you’d already had enough saturated fat for one morning and you ribbed her for being able to measure a person’s cholesterol just by the way they pronounced ‘frankfurter’.  
There would be a heavy downpour of rain about five minutes after you took the photo. You watched a small boy pushing himself along on a trike, his Scooby-doo tee-shirt a size too small and his tubby belly protruded above the waist of his pants. You watched Scully as she watched a dog trot past, and she cooed at how cute its little face was. You remember being amused by the tone of her voice, a cutesy sing-song that a mother might use for her child. And later you would remember that note and feel a stab of remorse that would never cut deep enough to punish you as you deserved.  
But back then none of that stuff was important. You just wanted to take the photo. She smiled for you in between giving you a million reasons why you shouldn’t take it. Her hair was frizzing, her suit was too austere, her makeup would make her look pale, there was no good reason to be doing this, Mulder, because what are you really ever likely to do with a snapshot of your partner on a street in Baltimore?  
You carried the photo in your wallet for months but she made you take it out when motel managers started to assume you were husband and wife and wanting to put you in one room. You never told her you’d had it framed. You pick it up and look at the image. You think you can just live your life and never let anyone get close enough to make it any harder than it already is, but you know now that it’s the act of letting someone close enough that makes a life. You wish you had longer. You wish you could tell her all the things she deserves to hear. You wish that you had told her how much she means to you. You think she knows. But thinking is not enough. You put the photo down and you sit on your couch. Carl Sagan is talking.  
“By finding out what the other planets are like, by finding out whether there are civilizations on planets among the stars, we re-establish a meaningful context for ourselves.”  
You think it’s too late to re-establish any kind of meaningful context for yourself, certainly for Scully. You pick up your gun.


End file.
